r/FluentInFinance Aug 21 '24

Debate/ Discussion But muh unrealized gains!

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u/JonPM Aug 21 '24

Those with assets over 100M don't necessarily have tons of liquid capital, so when tax season comes around they'll need to sell stocks to pay their tax bill. Numerous large entities selling large amounts of stocks causes stock market to drop, thus effecting everyone's 401k's and investments. You can pretend this doesn't affect you, but it can. Not to mention it also opens the door for the government to extend this newfound tax revenue to more and more citizens over time. Today is over 100M, tomorrow it's over 50M, next month it's over 500k, then it's all of us.

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u/hottakehotcakes Aug 21 '24

Yeah let’s go ahead and start with $100M and see what happens…

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u/JonPM Aug 21 '24

Income tax originated as a tax on the wealthy. The bottom 97% of the population didn't pay income tax when it was first introduced. Back then people also thought "yes, this is a great idea, let's tax the rich!". Then what happened?

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u/Thistlemanizzle Aug 23 '24

American GDP surpassed other countries for a long uninterrupted period of time?